


give my regards to soul and romance

by tameila



Series: rejoice series [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Family Feels, Fanfiction of Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:05:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameila/pseuds/tameila
Summary: Pike meets her new boyfriend’s old daughter. Kaylie meets her old man’s new girlfriend. Scanlan scanlanly panics.





	give my regards to soul and romance

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [rejoice because you're trying your best](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11236068) by [baehj2915](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915). 



> a fic exchange between [jabletown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baehj2915/pseuds/baehj2915) and me! If you aren't already, please read her beautiful fic before reading this one. This fic falls between chapters 10 & 11 of hers.

Pike can admit that she doesn’t know a lot of things in life.

For example, she isn’t sure what’s the meaning of those strange symbols on clothing tags and, at this point, she’s too afraid to ask.

She definitely doesn’t know anything about meeting a romantic partner’s teenage child. No matter how recently they became a teenager, and especially when considering how weirdly the romance with the partner started.

There isn’t exactly a YouTube video for ‘Introducing Yourself to Your Kinda-Boyfriend’s Daughter’, when the relationship also includes months worth of anonymous back-and-forth messages while the two of them also interacted in real life for a part of that time without knowing the other was who they were.

She checked.

Still, when Scanlan suggested the idea, meekly but with an optimistic lift of a smile, Pike eagerly agreed, because, well, they were in it now, weren’t they?

She wouldn’t back down.

●●●

Three different outfits lay out across Pike’s bed. She hates each one. She hates more that she’s doing this at all. Cycling through outfits. Criticizing herself before a mirror. Wondering if she’s still cool and hip and relevant.

She even brings out an old baby blue dress that she hasn’t worn since maybe high school. Which, despite her reservations, she tries on anyway, because why not? At this point, she’ll try anything. It’s tight around her biceps, sticking in her armpits uncomfortably.

What is she doing?

This isn’t her.

Tossing the dress aside with a huff, Pike searches her floor for one of her favored tank tops and that pair of jeans she knows make her legs look great. She left them sitting around from earlier this week, she’s certain. After two minutes of searching, she spots them halfway under the bed where she must have kicked them during her pacing from the closet and back.

Shaking out her hands and hissing out a sigh, she dresses with singular purpose.

She looks good.

She _always_ looks good.

That’s why she doesn’t glance into the mirror before leaving the apartment. Why she only snatches up her phone, stuffing it into her pocket, and pulls on a leather jacket over her stiff shoulders, the same leather jacket she wore the night before…

When Grog walked in on Scanlan and her making out on her couch. She’d forgotten they sent him an open invite to join them for watching poorly aged comedies on Netflix. Most of their “dates” were of a similar variety. Chill hangouts with kisses caught between laughs and in companionable silences. Last night, as it was, was the first time they’d made out at all. Not that she remembers much of it now. Her embarrassment blurs the edges of the memory. There was definitely a hand up someone’s shirt. A tongue on someone’s neck. A full minute of silence passed between them all before Pike scrambled off Scanlan and declared that Scanlan and her needed to run down to the corner store for snacks.

Dragging Scanlan, still slightly dazed, by his hand off the couch, she barely remembered to grab her jacket before they were out in the chilly Emon night.

They laughed the entire way to the store.

The memory eases Pike’s nerves as she makes her way to The Sun Tree for their agreed-upon date – 4:00, enough time for Scanlan to collect Kaylie from school and enough time for Kaylie to cool down after all that fun, fun middle school learning.

The plan for the afternoon is simple, in theory: Kaylie has a school project to complete. The details escape Pike, but it involves going to one of Emon’s numerous museums and writing about the experience. It was decided, upon agreeing that this meeting was going to happen, that a specific ‘Pike meet Kaylie, Kaylie meet Pike’ meeting might breed a particular bad vibe and rather they should simply…spend some time together, casually. And, Scanlan, like any Good Dad, already planned to take Kaylie to the art museum. Inviting Pike along seemed easy enough.

In practice, Pike worries that their optimism at the time of planning might have been ill timed.

That worry brings her to pause at the door when she arrives. In the glass, she catches her reflection. It’s, well, definitely her. Her tank top, a racerback with a dark blue to white gradient, billows loosely around the belt loops of her dark jeans, all snug under the tight lines of her jacket.

She looks like herself, she decides.

A version of herself that a 13-year-old would think is cool?

She decides she knows that a little less.

Grim but resolute, she squares her shoulders, breathes deep, and opens the door.

Scanlan and Kaylie sit on opposite sides of a small round table near the far wall, in a world of their own. Kaylie bats Scanlan’s hand away when he reaches across the table to point at the journal under Kaylie’s pencil. Scanlan pouts, eyes rolling upwards as he pontificates some melodramatic poetry about betrayal and filial disobedience.

Their words are muffled, but Pike fills in the blanks with all she knows.

Kaylie, who’s a firecracker and a dry wit, cracks a tilted smile at her dad.

Scanlan, who’s all talk and desperate attempts to walk, smiles right back with open adoration.

Pike realizes in a daze that it’s the first time she’s truly seen them together.

It’s…

Her breath stutters around a growing pressure in her chest. The tightness snakes around her heart and presses into her ribcage. As if there’s something weighty knocking at the door there, and with her back slammed against it, she’s dug her heels into the ground and prays to hold it at bay.

Uneasy chills roll up and down her spine, but Pike drags a shaky hand into her hair and steps forward into the shop.

“Oi, Pike!”

Scanlan waves her over to their table, bright-eyed and grinning. The softness on Kaylie’s face, however, has fallen. As Pike weaves through the tables to theirs, calming her breaths as she walks, she cannot help but notice that there’s nothing – not a twitch of her lips, not a wrinkle in her brow.

Kaylie’s eyes are sharp but a void of anything.

Scanlan, in welcoming contrast, gravitates towards her. The closer she gets, the more he leans into the table. His eyes remain intent upon her movement and scrunch up ever so slightly as she stops at the edge.

“Glad you could join us,” he says and brushes calloused fingertips against her arm, there and gone in a moment.

Pike nods, breathless for a beat, but she steadies. “Glad to be invited,” she says in response, lingering on Kaylie with her greeting smile.

Kaylie hums noncommittally and looks down at her journal.

Pike bolsters her resolve, lips curling.

“It’s so nice to officially meet you, Kaylie.” No response. “M’name’s Pike,” she says, a bit rushed. Flustered by the subsequent silence, she does something a little stupid in a desperate attempt to salvage the already failing situation: she offers her hand to Kaylie.

Kaylie looks up at her. She looks at her hand. She looks towards her dad.

Pike, tensing, looks to Scanlan as well. She catches the brief flicker of ‘oh no’ in his gaze, holds it and hopes it’s not too obvious in her own. Nervously, she turns her head back to Kaylie as her hand grabs – more like, flops against – hers, giving it a loose, half-assed shake.

Pike smiles, puts a lot of effort into it too with a tilt of her head and a scrunch of her nose. Predictably, Kaylie misses it by a second, returning to her journal. Under her breath, Pike hears her say, “What kind of name is Pike anyway?”

“Oh, well, Pike is my last name. Ashley’s my first, but everyone calls me Pike, so…”

“Uh-huh.” Kaylie enunciates. Pike cannot help but feel the unspoken ‘ _I didn’t ask_ ’ in the undertone.

Shit.

“Kaylie’s just finishing up her pre-adventure journal,” Scanlan says, and thank god for him. “Which I gather was supposed to be done much earlier, but we’ll forgive her, won’t we, Pike?” He smiles up at her. Pike’s hand twitches to touch him, to brush his shoulder at least, just for a moment, but Kaylie’s weighty presence holds her in place. As if he knows, Scanlan places a hand near the edge of the table. Pike lets her own hand just _happen_ to touch nearby.

Kaylie huffs. “Da-ad.”

“What?” Scanlan blinks with feigned innocence. Pike hides her chuckle behind a hand, eyes scrunching in delight when Kaylie turns on her with glare. It’s hard to be intimidated by her now when faced with reality of – Oh, right. She’s only a middle schooler, doing what middle schoolers do best: procrastinating and projecting a tougher exterior.

“Here – ” Scanlan stands from his seat and gestures Pike towards it. “Have a seat. I’ll grab another chair.”

“No, no,” Pike starts, but a coaxing hand floats between her shoulder blades. She relaxes, gives in, and she’s sitting in the chair, facing a grimacing Kaylie, before she can finish. Scanlan scurries over to another table. Pike watches him with fond eyes, despite herself.

Scanlan settles his newly found chair between her and Kaylie. While Kaylie works, Scanlan speaks to her, voice hushed and head bowed close, as to not disturb his daughter’s writing. Pike does her best to follow along. ‘Daughter’ is quite a word to just casually remember every time she glances Kaylie out of the corner of her eye, especially when that word is often preceded by the words ‘My Boyfriend’s.’

Still – despite the minor handshake hiccup and the mild teenager belligerence, things settle.

Pike only hopes they stay that way.

She wants to do this right. Scanlan laughs at his own little joke, laughs harder when Kaylie punches his arm to stop him, and her heart does something faintly embarrassing in her chest. She wants that more than she should probably admit.

●●●

The Art Institute of Emon boasts grand architecture, compelling new exhibitions every few months, and a pair of bronze lion statues framing the wide stairs with signs beneath them that each read “Use Common Sense When Interacting With Lion” and, in parentheses under that, “common sense, _n._ do not climb Lion”.

Scanlan beelines for a statue when they arrive, and Pike follows. 

“I climbed one of these when I was younger,” she says. “Papa Wilhand turned his back for a blink, and I was gone. Took three security guards to wrangle me.” 

Scanlan chuckles. “I believe it.” He pulls out his phone. “Here, let’s take a – Hey, Kaylie, honey, let’s take a picture!” 

Kaylie stands, hands on her hips, halfway up the steps. “No, can’t we just go?” She says, exuding teenage exasperation with every word. Scanlan simply waves his phone in one hand and beckons with the other. Kaylie looks to Pike.

“I’m sure you know better than me what he’s like,” Pike says. Softer, she adds, “Come on, lemme snap a quick picture of you guys.”

Kaylie sighs, rolling her eyes and her shoulders in one grand motion before hopping back down the stairs. As she approaches, Pike notes, with unnerving consequences, that Kaylie is almost the same height as her. She takes Scanlan’s phone when he offers it and focuses on framing the shot to avoid the thought.

It’s weird enough that her boyfriend has a daughter.

Weirder thinking that she’s all but full grown.

So – She doesn’t think about it. She snaps a few shots. Kaylie even cracks a smile for one, by some miracle. And, she doesn’t think about it.

As she holds out the phone towards Scanlan, he holds up a hand to stop her and looks to Kaylie.

“Would it be alright if we all took a photo together?” Kaylie’s expression hardens. Her arms fold in front of her. Scanlan’s hand upon her shoulder tightens, pulling Kaylie closer to him in a half-hug, as he lowers his voice and says, “To commemorate the occasion?”

Pike brings Scanlan’s phone back towards her and glances away out of courtesy.

“Fine,” Kaylie says, and Pike peeks to see her staring right at her. 

Shoulders sagging, Pike smiles and charms the nearest passerby with its wide glee and the alluring tempt of a phone being waved in their face. As she situates herself on Scanlan’s other side, giggling when he wraps his arm around her waist and reels her closer, she sinks into a sudden weightlessness.

Oh.

Their candid photographer calls that they’re going to take another one. She didn’t remember them taking the first.

Huh!

She tilts her head towards Scanlan and beams. She hears Kaylie’s fond but exasperated “Da-ad” followed by a laugh – Scanlan’s or Kaylie’s. She cannot tell. They mingle together, sound so alike.

When she laughs along, she wonders if her laugh stands out, wonders if the passerby, handing back the phone with a cordial smile, thinks they all fit together.

“Not half bad,” Scanlan says. He holds the phone outwards so Pike can see as well. She has to agree. Scanlan stands in the middle, the pinnacle of delight, with an arm around her waist and his other around his daughter’s shoulders. He’s poking lightly at Kaylie’s cheek – the “Da-ad” comes to mind – and her expression is one of loving (but exasperated) acceptance.

Pike rests her chin on Scanlan’s shoulder as she admires it.

“Yeah,” she says lightly. “It’s nice.”

Scanlan turns his head towards her, lips parting to speak, but Kaylie calls from behind them:

“Come on!” Pike and Scanlan turn together to see that she is, once again, halfway up the steps. Kaylie makes a show of tapping her foot and arching her brow. “You’re squandering my youth and vitality,” she singsongs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Scanlan calls back. “I’m old – I know, Miss One Joke McGee!”

With a quirk of her lips, Kaylie spins on a heel and continues up the stairs towards the main doors.

Scanlan chuckles. “Teenagers, huh?”

 _I wouldn’t know_ , Pike thinks, but she laughs all the same, because Scanlan waits for her at the bottom of the steps, arm open towards her, welcoming. His hand coasts to the small of her back as they start up the steps after Kaylie, and, for that moment, at least, with him close at her side, she feels at ease with it all: boyfriends, boyfriends with teenage daughters, and the prospect of fitting into that all somehow.

●●●

“Can you two _please_ try looking a little less old?”

Pike pauses in fixing Scanlan’s tour headphones and looks to Kaylie, blinking. With her journal resting on a forearm and her pencil twirling in her other hand, the girl meets her doe-eyed looks with youthful indifference. Pike stifles a laugh. It’s getting funnier. Scanlan, taking over for Pike, finishes fitting his headphones and chirps:

“It’s a music exhibit, Kaylie Bee.”

Kaylie rolls her eyes and wanders off.

“Don’t wander too far!” Scanlan calls after her. He turns to Pike and adds with a half-shrug and a quirk of his lips, “She never listens, but you get parent points for trying.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Shall we?” Scanlan offers her an elbow, which Pike happily loops a hand around.

“Lead the way, old man.”

In the days preceding this outing, Pike wondered how an art museum, generally built on the concept of visual art, might capture the artistic essence of music. The curators can hardly frame a composition – not truly, at least. But, as Scanlan and her wander around the first few rooms, Pike sees she might have been a bit short-sighted in her judgments.

With their tour headphones securely placed, they stand before paintings of village gatherings, grand ballrooms, and low-lit soloists and consider the movements and posture of the people. Music accompanies each piece, such as “Danse Macabre” or an entire block dedicated to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

They spend an indiscernible amount of time before a painting of swirls and swirls of color with an accompanying song that sounds like “Flight of The Bumblebee” but Scanlan helpfully informs her is not. They tilt their heads this way and that together and share a single look of confusion before moving onto the next piece.

As Scanlan leans in to inspect the details, Pike shuffles her feet and just says it:

“Thank you.”

“Hm?”

“For inviting me along.”

“’Course, Pikey. I – ,” he pauses, dips his head bashfully. “…She’s important to me. You’re – ” He points at her with a grin, and Pike’s heart flutters. “ _You_. You’re important to me. So, I’m glad. Yeah, I’m glad. Though...” He glances over to the other side of the room, and Pike follows his gaze. Kaylie stands before a different painting, diligently jotting notes in her notebook. She looks up and offers them a half-wave before moving onwards. “I apologize if her attitude was off-putting at all. I suppose it’s one thing to talk expectations for these things beforehand and another in practice, huh?”

“You’ve never introduced her to a partner before?”

“No, I don’t – I’ve never really, you know,” Scanlan gestures between them. “Gotten this far.”

“How far is that?” Scanlan blanches and stumbles for an answer. Pike doesn’t need it. This is enough. “Hey – ” She grasps his hand to calm him. “Thanks, really. I’m glad too.”

Scanlan’s hand loosens in hers then, as he gathers himself again, gently curls.

The classical score in their headphones reaches a romantic swell. A cheesy moment, too befitting of a Hollywood romantic picture and so unlike them, but Pike drops her gaze with a charmed blush all the same when Scanlan mouths “Einaudi” to her.

After a moment and a silent, shared smile, they move onto the next room after Kaylie.

Here, the paintings are spare to make room for rows of glass cases with musical instruments. Pike is inspecting one with a plastic tier of flutes when Scanlan gasps. His hand slips from hers, and Pike blinks after him as he makes a beeline for a case along the opposite wall. A lute, she finds, is what drew him. He stands before the glass, eyes all but sparkling with wonder, and she gets the feeling he’ll be here for a while, making it all the more fortuitous when she spots Kaylie out of the corner of her eye.

Pecking Scanlan on the cheek, she offers an explanation for her absence that she’s sure he only half-got before pushing back her headphones and following after Kaylie.

●●●

Unlike the rest of the museum, with high-ceilings and dim but dramatic lighting, the room Kaylie wanders into is small, intimate, and covered from head to toe in band posters. The lighting in here is subtle, better suited to a Hot Topic than an art museum. Perfect for a 13-year-old like Kaylie, she imagines, if Kaylie is anything like her when she was 13.

Kaylie stands before a print of The Beatles’ Abbey Road shoot, notebook held against her thighs and her head slightly cocked to the side. When Pike stops beside her, Kaylie offers her a cursory glance and little else. There, in her eyes, however, is recognition and – maybe Pike’s being optimistic here – acceptance.

“Is your report going well?” Pike tries.

Kaylie shrugs. “Sure.”

Pike chuckles lightly, and Kaylie looks her way. Pike only smiles in the face of her arched brow. “Thanks for letting me come along, by the way.”

Kaylie shrugs again, but it’s stiffer this time, almost bashful in a way. “Yeah, it’s fine. Thanks for,” she mumbles, picking at a fraying corner of her notebook, “…dating my Dad...or whatever.”

Pike hums. “Yeah, he’s alright.”

“You’re not so bad either,” Kaylie says so lightly that Pike almost misses it.

“Yea? You decide that from just - standing within my vicinity?” She teases.

“I have eyes.”

Pike laughs despite herself, ignoring the swoop in her stomach. Good or bad. She doesn’t focus on the feeling long enough to tell. “So you do,” she relents.

“Wow!” Pike and Kaylie share a glance. “Now, _this_ is a jam!”

Turning with Kaylie, Pike looks back into the other room to see Scanlan, shimmying away before a painting of what looks like, from this distance, a jazz club.

“Let’s just leave him.”

“Kaylie,” Pike says, throwing an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “You’re truly after my own heart.”

They sneak out past Scanlan to wander the rest of the exhibit together. Scanlan, wild eyed and slightly winded, finds them some thirty minutes later sitting together on the front steps and sharing a pastry from the bakery down the road. He flops on the steps next to them in a big to-do and sings of their cruelty for leaving him so very, very alone in such a strange, unforgiving place. Pike and Kaylie share an eye roll and no small amount of affection for him in that moment – of that, Pike is certain.

She feels like she’s becoming certain of a lot more things nowadays.

Because she can admit she doesn’t know a lot of things in life, like how to tie a ribbon and not a knot or how to properly open an envelope without ripping the whole thing to shreds, but she knows enough to know that there’s something – on these steps, to Scanlan and her, to Kaylie and all her teenaged indifference. Something to keep.

Huh.

She’s really in it now, isn’t she?

**Author's Note:**

> hello and _wow_ , my friends! I joked with jable a while back that we should switch and write each other's fics, and it turned into a fic exchange. I'm so honored to be a part of the rejoice mythos now. I hope all of you who love rejoice also come to love this lil half-chapter as well. Come join me in the comments and let's talk about how much we love rejoice together!!
> 
> also, jable wrote the most beautiful fic,[ Cocaine Burnout Angel Eases My Mind In The Early Morning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12573380), for [my fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10013741/chapters/22323065). Give it a read and lots of love!
> 
> EDIT (10/30), now with fanart of that makeout sesh i wrote in this fic of fic by the wonderful [acecasinova](http://acecasinova.tumblr.com/). [See it here](http://acecasinova.tumblr.com/post/166958776924/so-fanart-of-a-fanfics-fanfic-is-a-thing-right)! Appreciate it! Love it!!
> 
> in true "rejoice" fashion, lemme regal you with some music selections...  
> \- [Pulaski at Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oecHq2neweA) by Andrew Bird (based the Art Institute not-so-subtly after Chicago's Art Institute, so here is one of my favorite Chicago-inspired songs which I think fits the vibe of rejoice beautifully)  
> \- [Danse Macabre](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpGW-YjjLGU) by The Oh Hellos  
> \- [Discovery at Night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpRK_vCzSsg) by Ludovico Einaudi (for the scene where Pike and Scanlan have their Moment. I searched for a suitable classical piece for ages, but finally settled for something by my favorite neo-classical composer instead. Check out all his stuff! It's amazing!!)  
> \- [Human](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFvjzJu0btY) by The Killers (for the fic title)
> 
>  
> 
> and now some classical nonsense...  
> \- [Bolero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4wb11w0ZHQ) by Ravel (shoutout to anyone else who's watched the original Japanese Digimon Adventure/02 and knows this piece by heart)  
> Vivaldi's [Winter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZCfydWF48c) from his Four Seasons series


End file.
